Art on the Riviera: Breakfast at La Colombe d’Or

by delacybrown on July 10, 2015

I wish I could claim to enjoy the kind of artistic notoriety and talent of those celebrated artists exhibited in the stunning collection of La Colombe d’Or and the Fondation Maeght, the latter being the feature of my last Art on the Riviera post. In the second feature of this series, allow me to indulge myself a little by featuring not the work of an artist great, but a painting created by myself.

Except that is not perhaps strictly true… for in sharing with you another of my honeymoon artworks, completed while we stayed at the blissful Colombe d’Or hotel, I am also sharing something of the work of much more famous artist, Fernand Léger. This is because in painting a work devoted to our experience of eating breakfast in the garden of La Colombe d’Or, I could not do so without featuring the stunning 1950s ceramic mural by Léger which is famously installed in the garden.

Breakfast at La Colombe d’Or captures the random cosiness of the beautiful restaurant terrace as it was set up for breakfast on those sunny Riviera mornings. Still recovering from a heaving night of fine dining, and before preparation of the terrace for lunch, the restaurant at breakfast had much more of a relaxed feel, like a star of the stage before her makeup was applied. The old rusty tables around which Picasso once sat were scattered haphazardly without a tablecloth – this was only placed on the table when a guest chose from amongst them and sat down to eat petit dejeuner in a dappled spot. Likewise the little vintage metal chairs were randomly placed, their normal cushions not yet affixed.

Amongst this friendly scene, the ceramic mural by Léger continued to glimmer in the morning sunshine filtered through the large leaves of the garden’s fig trees, and on the table, an exquisite breakfast of rich coffee, pastries and fruit was served in La Colombe’s iconic branded porcelaine. Breakfast bliss.